1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the accurate measurement of the multidimensional acceleration and/or rotation of a sensor structure in spite of possible errors in measurement by an individual acceleration sensor and/or individual rotation sensor. Applications include inertial navigation and guidance systems.
2. Description of Related Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,700, Nov. 15, 1994, Skewed Axis Inertial Sensor Assembly. This patent shows a 3 dimensional, failure tolerant, 6 accelerometer, and/or 6 rotation sensor system. It is representative of the known prior art. It can tolerate one accelerometer failure, and/or one gyro failure.
The use of arrays of 6 accelerometers and/or 6 rotation sensors in a 3 dimensional sensor array would require 50% more sensors than the 4 accelerometers and/or rotation sensors that would be required with the current invention. In addition to the size, weight and cost penalties of using arrays of 6 sensors rather than 4, the probable time to a sensor failure will be shorter with arrays of 6 rather than 4 sensors simply because there are more sensors to fail.